These are the 50 greatest Texas movies ever. Ever.

These are the 50 greatest Texas movies ever. Ever.

You want to start a fight? Ask a room of culture vultures to cite the most “Texas” film ever made. Fists tighten and eyes narrow when somebody suggests “Reality Bites” deserves the distinction. Faces offer mortified incredulity when “Giant” is cast as representative of today’s Texans. And don’t even mention “Urban Cowboy.” It’s as polarizing as a political debate at a coffee club.

But the passion comes out because we care about Texas. And movies. And especially movies about Texas, of which there are many. Friday, another one joins the long list as “Sicario: Day of the Soldado” hits theaters as the latest in this franchise about the enforcement of drug trafficking across the U.S.-Mexico border, and into Texas.

That bit of timeliness was all we needed to launch a full-blown debate about which films best characterize the Lone Star State. Five Chronicle staffers — Andrew Dansby, Cary Darling, Syd Kearney, Jody Schmal and myself — settled the debate by casting the 50 best “Texas” films ever made.

At this point, you’re probably wondering what makes something a “Texas” movie. Well, it has to be primarily set in Texas — but not necessarily filmed here. It has to characterize the people, way of life or essence of the state. And it has to be a good movie. With that, here’s our list. Feel free to disagree, or offer your own list, just keep it civil.

1. “Hell or High Water" (2016)

Texas writer Taylor Sheridan’s story of two West Texas brothers, played by Chris Pine and Ben Foster, pushed to bank-robbing criminality to right what they feel is an economic wrong, beautifully captures their sense of flatland desolation and desperation. The movie is directed by Scotland’s David Mackenzie but it’s suffused with Sheridan’s sense of place as it’s the second film in his trilogy about life in the West (the others are “Sicario” and “Wind River”). True, there may occasionally be too many mountains (it was shot in New Mexico) or oddly short driving distances between far-flung towns, but its laconic spirit is pure Texas. The performances, including those of Jeff Bridges as the lawman on their tail and Gil Birmingham as his deputy, are pitch perfect, too.

Notable Texas moment: When the brothers rob a bank and find they aren’t the only ones who are armed.

— Cary Darling

2. “The Last Picture Show" (1971)

The shorthand assessment of Peter Bogdanovich’s adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s 1966 novel is that nothing happens in this story about a town withering on a dying vine. On the contrary, quite a bit happens as Bogdanovich masterfully conveyed the suppressed emotions and aspirations of the inhabitants of Thalia in a piece of lush, black-and-white cinema that possesses the feeling of plainsong. For those who require bombast, “The Last Picture Show” will come across as muted. But the characters (McMurtry co-wrote the screenplay with Bogdanovich) are so richly detailed that a single narrative fissure becomes part of a larger web of cracks that affects multiple characters, just as you’d expect in a tiny town. The film teeters between melancholy and fatalism as it tiptoes toward its title, a screening of the John Wayne classic “Red River.”

Notable Texas moment: The Ben Johnson fishing monologue: “I reckon the reason why I always drag you out here is probably I’m just as sentimental as the next feller when it comes to old times. Old times.”

— Andrew Dansby

3. “Bernie" (2011)

If the two types of story are “man goes on a journey” and “stranger comes to town,” Richard Linklater’s film is clearly the latter, with an emphasis on the strange. “Bernie” doesn’t lend itself to easy categorization, which is part of its charm as a hybrid of true crime, black comedy, small-town legal drama and documentary. Linklater wrote the film with Skip Hollandsworth, whose Texas Monthly reporting told the story of a theatrical mortician who befriended a feral but wealthy widow, only to shoot her and stuff her into a deep freeze. The town of Carthage would likely have preferred the story fade away, but Jack Black’s fittingly hammy presentation of Bernie Tiede and Linklater’s judgment-free presentation of his crime made for comic gold.

Notable Texas moment: This quote: “In a small town, people will always suspect the worst of someone. But they’ll also suspect the best.”

— Andrew Dansby

4. “Boyhood" (2014)

Director Richard Linklater’s chronicle of contemporary male adolescence from the ages of 6 to 18 — set in Houston, San Marcos and the Big Bend region of West Texas — is a technical marvel. Instead of getting different actors to play the main character of Mason at different ages, Linklater chose to utilize the same cast and film a few weeks each year over the course of a dozen years. This adds a layer of realism, especially as star Ellar Coltrane morphs from cherubic to gangly, that no amount of makeup or computer effects can duplicate in a similar way. Beyond the nightmarish logistics of such an undertaking, the nearly three-hour “Boyhood” is an involving portrait of everyday suburban family life, from collapsing marriages to new schools, that resonates with anyone who has been alive in America over the past half century. And the soundtrack, from The Hives’ “Hate to Say I Told You So” to Family of the Year’s “Hero,” is a solid collection of indie rock from the century’s first decade.

Buzz Bissinger’s best-selling book about the depth of passion for football in the Permian Basin became a moving film that captures the guts and the glory of Texas high school football while also illuminating some of the sport’s social impact on the community around it. While neither the film nor the subsequent, equally rewarding television series, provided as much of the racial and economic backdrop as the book, “Friday Night Lights” the film succeeds on its own terms as a sports movie with a soul. It’s not just about winning and losing but being. Billy Bob Thornton plays coach Gary Gaines with a flinty intensity, and he heads up a solid cast of young actors (Derek Luke, Lucas Black, Garrett Hedlund, Jay Hernandez) who seem like they really could be kids from Odessa. It helps that actor-turned-director Peter Berg captures the games in all of their bone-crunching, stadium-stomping grandeur. Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose, indeed.

Notable Texas moment: Any of the football games.

— Cary Darling

6. “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" (2005)

An exhumation film without zombies. Guillermo Arriaga wrote the story about an immigrant shot and killed by border patrol, and Tommy Lee Jones directed and stars as a rancher and friend who wants to see him get a proper burial back home in Mexico. A rough-edged morality tale from Jones, who, thanks to “Lonesome Dove,” knows about dragging around bodies.

The shootouts and coin flips and haircuts get all the attention, which is fine because this film has a remarkable angel of death. But the quiet conclusion proves the Coen brothers were deeply attuned to writer Cormac McCarthy’s rumination on time, aging, violence, past deeds and how they fuel feelings of resignation.

Notable Texas moment: Two grizzled lawmen (Tommy Lee Jones and Barry Corbin) talking about death, with Corbin’s voice coursing like the wind through “caliche” and “19-zero-and-9.”

— Andrew Dansby

8. “Paris, Texas" (1984)

German director Wim Wenders and American playwright Sam Shepard, working from the Kit Carson novel, collaborated on one of the most eloquently Texas films of the last half-century. Harry Dean Stanton is a man who wanders in from the desert, after being gone for four years, and finds that, in some ways, he’s still lost.

Notable Texas moment: The city in the title doesn’t make an appearance, as the movie was filmed in Houston, El Paso, Port Arthur, Galveston, West Texas and California.

— Cary Darling

9. “The Searchers" (1956)

Sure, there are aspects of John Ford’s best film that are a little dated now. But visually, it’s one of the most influential films ever made, with innovative use of shadow. And thematically, it was bold, too, putting John Wayne’s racist antihero at the heart of an ambiguous story about obsession, family and home.

Notable Texas moment: The iconic rock formations of Monument Valley in Arizona and Utah stand in for Texas. But they fittingly convey the remoteness of West Texas in the 1860s.

— Andrew Dansby

10. “Urban Cowboy" (1980)

This film, with its hit soundtrack and John Travolta starring as a Houston cowboy who likes to dance, was meant to do for country music what “Saturday Night Fever” did for disco — and it succeeded. On top of that, it popularized that whole mechanical bull thing.

Ben Foster and Chris Pine in “Hell Or High Water.”

Ben Foster and Chris Pine in “Hell Or High Water.”

Photo: Lorey Sebastian / CBS Films

Photo: Lorey Sebastian / CBS Films

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Ben Foster and Chris Pine in “Hell Or High Water.”

Ben Foster and Chris Pine in “Hell Or High Water.”

Photo: Lorey Sebastian / CBS Films

These are the 50 greatest Texas movies ever. Ever.

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Notable Texas moment: When Travolta and co-star Debra Winger two-step their way around the dance floor at Gilley’s.

— Cary Darling

Texas movie nights

To properly celebrate Texas movies we’ve partnered with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston to create a film series showcasing some of the selections on this list. We’ll be screening one a month through December, with a fan’s choice for that final month. Here are the first three screenings.

“The Border,” 7 p.m. July 22

“Selena,” 7 p.m. Aug. 12

“Giant,” 1 p.m. Sept. 3 (Labor Day)

Tickets will be available through the MFAH website, mfah.org, and we’ll have more information about these screenings as the dates arrive.

11. “Giant” (1956)

Edna Ferber’s sprawling novel about the life of West Texas cattle barons and oil tycoons became an equally big, Oscar-winning movie — starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean and a young Dennis Hopper — that runs well over three hours.

Notable Texas moment: When a gusher covers James Dean in oil.

— Cary Darling

12. “Reality Bites” (1994)

This was the most contested film by our panel. Some saw it as a top-three work, others wondered if it belonged in the final 50. It landed at 12 for exemplifying the zeitgeist of its time like few other films and for showing a side of Texas that most people in the ’90s didn’t realize existed — Houston’s hip, bohemian youth culture that worshipped the Violent Femmes as much as Townes Van Zandt.

In the early ’30s, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker put Texas on the map, but not in a good way: the Dallas couple were two of the best-known crime figures of the time. Arthur Penn’s gripping, groundbreaking account of their lurid love of blood, guns, money and, of course, each other shocked viewers 50 years ago, especially with its bullet-riddled death scene where Bonnie and Clyde — played memorably by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway — finally get what’s coming to them. The film, coming out at a time of youthful rebellion, defined its time.

Notable Texas moment: As “Bonnie & Clyde” is set in an era before DFW became the urban mass it is today, the film’s sense of blackland prairie and rural expanse (it was shot all over North Texas from Denton to Waxahachie) conveys what a large chunk of the state looked like 80 years ago.

— Cary Darling

14. “Tender Mercies” (1983)

Australia’s Bruce Beresford directed this heartfelt drama, but Texan Horton Foote wrote the screenplay for this wonderfully authentic tale of redemption. It stars Robert Duvall, in one of his best performances, as a down-on-his-luck country singer who has his faith in life restored after meeting a widow (Tess Harper) in a small Texas town (it was filmed in Waxahachie and Palmer).

Notable Texas moment: One of the tracks Duvall sings on the soundtrack, “It Hurts to Face Reality,” was composed by the late, great Texas country singer Lefty Frizzell, who hails from Corsicana.

— Cary Darling

15. “Places in the Heart” (1984)

Sally Field won the best actress Oscar for her role as a ’30s-era widow with two young children trying to make a go of it on a small Central Texas farm. The supporting cast — Danny Glover, John Malkovich, Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Lindsay Crouse — is equally strong. But Field’s battle against difficult land and circumspect bankers is stronger.

Notable Texas moment: It’s directed and written by Robert Benton, who hails from Waxahachie and also wrote the screenplay for another classic, Texas period piece, “Bonnie & Clyde.”

— Cary Darling

16. “Blood Simple” (1984)

Joel and Ethan Coen did a test run for a Texas noir years before “No Country for Old Men.” This one is more carnal and less deeply philosophical, but beautifully shot and oozing with menace, just the same with all the betrayals and double-crosses one would expect from a story that takes its title from Dashiell Hammett.

Notable Texas moment: Everything about Loren Visser, the private detective played my M. Emmet Walsh. From his yellow polyester western jacket to his sweaty face, to his query, “Just how irritated are you?”

— Andrew Dansby

17. “Red River” (1948)

A legendary cattle drive on the Chisholm Trail from Texas to Kansas is the backdrop for this two-fisted Western starring John Wayne, Walter Brennan and Montgomery Clift. It’s directed by the celebrated Howard Hawks, who made such important films of the 20th century as “The Big Sleep,” “To Have and Have Not” and “Rio Bravo.”

Filmmaker Terrence Malick spent some of his youth in Waco, which in part informed this deeply meditative poem of a film about the paths of grace and nature as experienced through the eyes of a boy who viewed each of his parents as representing one path. Much of the film was shot in Smithville.

Notable Texas moment: A city of Waco truck slowly moves down a residential street pumping out DDT, with joyful children frolicking in the clouds of insecticide.

— Andrew Dansby

19. “The Border” (1982)

A lean Jack Nicholson in a full sprint is the best indication that this story about criminal activity along the border near El Paso isn’t a contemporary film. Some of the crime is drug-running. But some of the agents are in on the hustle, too, committing murder and kidnapping. One of them suggests a new working economy: “YOU go out on a boiling hot day and pick your own lettuce and tomatoes and beans and onions.”

Notable Texas moment: Nicholson zipping through brush trying to track down a man who tried to cross the border with contraband.

— Andrew Dansby

20. “Lone Star” (1996)

John Sayles’ noir-ish murder mystery, set in a sweaty Texas border town and with a strong cast that includes Chris Cooper, Kris Kristofferson and Matthew McConaghey, is a small masterpiece of mood and feel. It was nominated for a screenwriting Oscar.

Notable Texas moment: When the sheriff, played by Kristofferson, finds his bribe sandwiched between two tortillas.

— Cary Darling

21. “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974)

Tobe Hooper’s classic fright film is still a horror bedrock, with the Leatherface that launched a million screams. It’s genre importance is monumental, but the movie also characterized an aspect of rural fear that transcends horror. It’s a classic not because it birthed new fears but because it echoed the ones we already whispered to ourselves — in Texas, or anywhere.

Best Texas moment: A woman riding to safety in the back of a pickup, down a dusty road at dusk.

— Robert Morast

22. “North Dallas Forty” (1979)

Sports films are often corrupt with the blinding light of hero worship or victory as destiny. Not this view of 1970s professional football in Dallas. Here, the athletes are flawed and jaundiced, not to mention treated like contract workers. Some say the movie matters because — written by former Cowboys receiver Peter Gent — it characterized former coach Tom Landry’s unfeeling culture, but in a state that worships the sport it’s great because it revealed what our heroes were really like.

Best Texas moment: A priest offering pregame prayer among the kneeling behemoths.

— Robert Morast

23. “Selena” (1997)

In Selena Quintanilla, Gregory Nava had a pretty epic story to tell with dramatic highs, struggle-filled lows and a horrifying final chapter. Because Selena was murdered so young and so early in her career, the story on film is compact as it runs from Lake Jackson restaurant gigs to a record crowd at the Astrodome.

Notable Texas moment: Patriarch Abraham Quintanilla explains to his music-minded children that a Mexican audience might not be as welcoming as the ones they find in Texas.

—Andrew Dansby

24. “Hope Floats” (1998)

Smithville is the setting for this drama about a suddenly single mother (Sandra Bullock) returning home from the big city. It’s a familiar trope, but the film, directed Texan Forest Whitaker, paints the setting in such a welcoming, warm way it’s hard not to dream of small-town Texas where everybody knows your business, and that’s all right.

Best Texas moment: Harry Connick Jr. in a cowboy hat and boots, dancing like a Lone Star dream.

— Robert Morast

25. “Terms of Endearment” (1983)

Let’s be clear: This movie might be the best, pure film on this list. But the tale of a cancer-stricken family and a playboy astronaut in Houston isn’t necessarily a “Texas” film. In many ways, it could have taken place in Florida or Virginia and not skipped a beat. That’s why it’s this low.

Most movie fans are at least familiar with the titles of the best-known films set in Texas, from "The Last Picture Show" to "Boyhood," but there are many smaller movies, buried by lack of promotion, budget or star power, that demand unearthing despite going largely unnoticed in the mainstream. Here are six films worth checking out, and each is available for streaming.

"Cold in July" (2014): Michael C. Hall, Don Johnson, and Sam Shepard star in this engrossing, sweaty little thriller that's an adaptation from a novel by noted Texas writer Joe R. Lansdale. Though set in Texas, it was filmed in New York.

"This Is Where We Live" (2013): San Angelo-born character actor Marc Menchaca (the TV series "Ozark") returned to Texas to write, direct and star in this exceedingly moving, ensemble drama about a hard-scrabble Central Texas family caught up in tough times. C.K. McFarland delivers a powerhouse performance as a woman straining under the weight of dealing with a husband with dementia, a son with cerebral palsy and a headstrong daughter who'd rather be anywhere else. Get the tissues ready.

"Krisha" (2015): Houstonian Trey Edward Shults turned a real-life family crisis into the basis for his powerful debut about a particularly contentious and fateful holiday dinner. Shot in Spring and starring Shults' aunt, Krisha Fairchild, as the troubled title character, it's a remarkable film that won a ton of film-festival honors before getting picked up by A24 for distribution.

"Upstream Color" (2013) and "Primer" (2004): North Texas software programmer turned filmmaker/writer/actor/musician Shane Carruth crafts ingenious, cinematic Rubik's Cubes that may be puzzling but are still rewarding. Whether it's about two friends who've come up with a strange invention ("Primer") or a beautifully enigmatic love story of sorts that manages to turn Dallas into something surreal and almost otherworldly ("Upstream Color"), Carruth's work is wonderfully idiosyncratic. Perhaps the best quote about Carruth came from Steven Soderbergh, who told Entertainment Weekly, "I view Shane as the illegitimate offspring of David Lynch and James Cameron."

"Transpecos" (2016): The workaday world of Border Patrol agents doing their jobs along an isolated stretch of West Texas outback is turned upside down to compelling effect in Greg Kwedar's intense feature debut. This is "Sicario" without the big budget or big stars, a tense thriller that makes you want to see what Kwedar is going to do next.

"Pit Stop" (2013): Austin director Yen Tan turns his lens on gays in the Lone Star State, telling stories that few others are putting on screen. In "Pit Stop," two middle-age men in small-town Texas find refuge in each other. It's a well-sketched character portrait, nominated for audience awards at Sundance and SXSW, of invisible, quiet lives that often go unacknowledged.

Clutch City cinema

Although Austin and Dallas make more appearances on the big screen than H-town, our city has gotten its close-up more than a few times over the years. Here are some of Houston's Hollywood moments.

"Apollo 13" (1995): Houston does not have a problem in Ron Howard's retelling of the Apollo 13 space mission that was filmed in part at the Johnson Space Center.

"Armageddon" (1998): While most Houstonians might think armageddon is Loop 610 at rush hour, this Michael Bay adventure starring Bruce Willis was about something even more ominous: an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. It was partly filmed at the Johnson Space Center and Ellington Field.

"Blind Fury" (1989): Rutger Hauer as a blind swordfighter? Yes, please. That it was partly filmed in Houston and Sealy makes it all the better.

"Boyhood" (2013): Richard Linklater reminiscence about growing up mirrors some of his upbringing in suburban Houston and was shot in Houston as well as in central and west Texas.

"Brewster McCloud" (1970): This Robert Altman film about a loner who lives unknown inside the Astrodome sounds like it could have been made today.

"Jason's Lyric" (1994): A young Jada Pinkett Smith starred in this love story shot all over Houston from the Heights to Montrose, Third Ward to Fourth.

"Reality Bites" (1994): Perhaps the ultimate Gen-X movie was set right here in Houston. Ethan Hawke, Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo and Winona Ryder were the stars and Montrose, Midtown and the Heights were the places you could find them.

"Robocop 2" (1990): For a franchise supposedly set in Detroit, the filmmakers sure spent a lot of time in Texas. The first "Robocop" was shot in Dallas and this follow-up was shot in downtown Houston and Fifth Ward.

"Rushmore" (1998): These days, Wes Anderson is much more likely to have his films set in Japan than Houston, but this early film about a kid at fictional Rushmore prep shot in several local schools, including Lamar High School, St. John's School and North Shore Senior High School.

"Sidekicks" (1992): What's a Texas list without a little Chuck Norris? He starred in this martial-arts comedy that was shot at Eleanor Tinsley Park and Lamar High School, among other Houston locations.

"Sugar Hill" (1974): Released at the height of Hollywood's post-"Shaft"/"Superfly" "blaxploitation" phase, this African-American voodoo crime-thriller was shot in Houston.

"The Swarm" (1978): Killer bees on the loose in Clutch City? Master of disaster Irwin Allen postulated just that in this all-star sting-fest that was mostly shot in California but also utilized the Astrodome and Memorial Park.

"Terms of Endearment" (1983): Shirley McLaine and Debra Winger led a great cast in this James L. Brooks dramedy that won five Oscars including best picture. That it happened to film all around Houston (and, to be fair, Nebraska) makes it even sweeter.

"Tin Cup" (1996): The Kevin Costner-Rene Russo rom-com about a golf pro trying to get his mojo back was partially shot in Houston and Kingwood.

"The Tree of Life" (2011): Terrence Malick's globe-spanning epic shot in a variety of locations from Italy to Iceland but also made several stops in Texas, including Houston.

"Twins" (1988): The oddball Arnold Schwarzenegger-Danny DeVito buddy comedy was mostly filmed in LA, but it did make a stop in Houston.

"Urban Cowboy" (1980): Those who tire of the Texas cowboy clichés when it comes to the Lone Star State in the movies can at least take comfort in the fact that this boot-scootin' John Travolta film has "urban" in the title.

"Space Cowboys" (2000): Though most of this film starring Clint Eastwood and Tommy Lee Jones about astronauts coming out of retirement was shot in California, the Johnson Space Center and a bar in Webster were also used.

"Logan's Run" (1976): What is it with all these dystopian, futuristic films having a Texas connection? This one has more North Texas locations in Dallas and Fort Worth, but Houston was one of the cities used for filming as well.